The room goes still as death.
Griff gets close to her, his eyes blazing with fury. “What the fuck do you think you’re doin’?”
Her heart thundering, Alabama crosses her arms and squares up. “Givin’ a damn about you, Griff, because it’s clear no one else out here does.”
He laughs, a bitter, broken sound. “The only reason you give a damn about me is because you need me.” His upper lip curls in contempt. “Without me, all you’d be good for is playin’ your shit songs at shit-ass Mill’s Tavern in that shit mess of yours you call a life.”
She jerks back like he’s slapped her. The blow of his words, their stinging truth, has her turning on her heel and striding fast for her bedroom. Stupid man. She ain’t putting up with this shit. Doesn’t know why she cares, why she tried. It’s clear Griff’s only looking out for himself, just like he did in Clover.
“Alabama ...” Griff’s voice follows her down the hall. The shuffle of his footsteps as he stumbles after her.
She doesn’t stop. She can’t stop. She stops, she’ll break, and she’ll never give Griff Greyson the satisfaction of seeing her fall.
She throws her bedroom door open. She whips around to slam it shut, but Griff wedges his boot in, propping it wide open.
Her gut twists as their gazes collide. She doesn’t know what she expected—that same ire and fire he directed at her in the lounge—but not regret and remorse. She’s so stunned her hand tightens around the doorknob to hold herself up. Griff’s face is raw, frayed down to its absolute edges, like he’s trying to hold it together and barely succeeding.
“Al,” he says, broken-voiced. Tentatively, he reaches out to fiddle with a long lock of her red hair. The strand disappears in his palm as he cups the side of her face. A lick of heat sweeps down her spine as he grazes a calloused thumb across the curve of her cheek. “I didn’t mean it,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.”
She closes her eyes, her entire body a shudder. She wants to break in half at his touch. “Please. Let me have this, Griff.” Her voice shakes. “Don’t ruin this for me.”
“I won’t. I swear it, Al. I won’t.”
His softly uttered words, a promise she doesn’t know if she can believe, have her opening her eyes.
Griff’s moved closer. His big, broad hands clutch her around the waist, and then they drift down to grip the hem of her T-shirt. Slowly, so slowly, he pulls her into him.
Alabama’s cheeks warm. Her heartbeat surges through her, a pulse in her chest, a pulse down below. It’s a reminder of how they used to be. How they’d bicker until steam started pouring out of their ears and they started tearing each other’s clothes off. How sparks always flew between them, but they made up like none of it mattered. Like nothing would ever stand in their way.
Apparently, Griff feels it too because his eyes haven’t left her face. Not once.
Desire curls in the pit of her stomach. The urge to grip Griff by his dirty T-shirt and pull him into her bedroom has real teeth.
A shrill giggle in the hallway sets the alarm siren off in her brain.
What the hell is she doing? Griff’s drunk.
Griff’s drunk and she’s just another girl to him.
This—whatever this is—is not an option. All Alabama’s doing is falling back into her old ways. Falling into his ways.
The thought’s acid.
She jerks away from him.
“Al,” he says, reaching for her.
“Go to bed, Greyson,” she says, lightly pushing him out of her doorway. He staggers drunkenly and looks at her shamefaced. “Go to bed and sleep it off.”
She shuts the door. Her breath, her heart, held still in her chest until she hears his soft pad of footsteps heading down the hall.